The Washington Post fact check team awarded President Donald Trump their “Gepetto Checkmark” which they reserve “for claims that are surprisingly correct” after Trump said that his cabinet’s confirmation approval process took a record breaking length of time during the first full cabinet meeting Tuesday.
“The median wait between nomination and Senate vote for Trump was 25 days,” WaPo reporter Glen Kessler wrote. “By contrast, Obama’s nominees faced a median wait of two days, George W. Bush had a median wait of zero days and Bill Clinton had a median wait of one day.”
Kessler also noted that Trump’s nominees faced an unprecedented number of votes to end debate, also known as cloture votes, which can “gum up the works with arcane procedural delays.”
“Here’s a striking statistic: Fourteen of Trump’s Cabinet nominees faced a vote to end debate, even though six ultimately achieved 60 or more votes,” Kessler added. “In other words, 14 of Trump’s Cabinet nominees faced a cloture vote, compared to 11 for all previous presidents combined.”
Kessler pointed out that the unwritten rules have changed regarding when opposition to cabinet confirmations is warranted.
“It is noteworthy that the cloture votes during previous presidencies all took place during the president’s second term,” he said. “There was presumption in the Senate of letting a new president get his first-term team in place quickly that apparently has gone by the wayside.”
While Kessler admitted that Trump faced significant opposition, he attributed some of the delay in confirmation to the wealth of the nominated individuals.
“He also nominated many very wealthy nominees with highly complex financial portfolios, leading the federal ethics watchdog to warn it could take months to probe some of the wealthier picks,” Kessler said.
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